Musical Chairs Series to Finally Destroy Television

Unfortunately America's real national pastime will soon be gone. Also today: lots of people take cold helpings of Revenge, Roseanne Barr gets some bad news, and Charlize Theron gets brutal.

It's been sixty some-odd years of television and I hope you've enjoyed it — all the laughs, all the cries, all the every time Buffy dies — because it will soon be over. Yup. Done, dead, gone. Reduced to the dust and water of memory. You see, The CW is putting together a television series based on the game Musical Chairs. As in run around in a circle and when the music stops sit in a chair and if you don't have a chair you are out. Now, the CW will be making this whole thing a little more extreme, meaning, I assume, that if you don't have a chair you will be summarily executed by the host (Marc Summers?), so it's not exactly the game you used to play in kindergarten, but still it's based on that game. So that's basically it! That'll happen and then there will be a great sucking sound followed by a brief fizz of static and then TV will be gone. No more. People will emerge from their houses, blinking bleary eyes, and they will walk, zombies with a remembrance of a place, to the book store. No, ha, just kidding. They'll walk to the movies. I mean, we're not Europeans for god's sake. [The Wrap]

Amidst all the talk of Modern Family's big premiere numbers and The X Factor's OK premiere numbers, we've ignored those of the new revenge drama about revenge, Revenge. (A bold title choice. Not sure it plays, but we'll see.) It was helped by its MF lead in and nabbed 10.1 million viewers. Not too shabby! And how was the show itself? Well I'll confess that I only just watched it this afternoon after someone on Twitter told me it involves Eric van der Woodsen and the word "strips," but as it turns out it's kinda fun? I mean, it's not like well done or anything. But it's a kick to see Madeleine Stowe again and there's the aforementioned Eric van der Woodsen stripping. (He's 21, folks, calm down. I was seven when he was born so it's OK. [right?].) Anyway, it beats Ringer, I hate to say, as far as New York-set soap-mysteries go. [Deadline]

Ugly weirdo Charlize Theron is thinking about starring in a mystery movie about a brutal murder and blah blah. Aren't these murders always called "brutal"? I feel like the word is losing all meaning (says someone who's already used it once today). I mean, unless the person was slowly ground up in an enormous meat grinder while they were forced to listen to "Moves Like Jagger" on repeat and a clown peed on them, I think we should just take the brutal word away from movie descriptions. Wait, though, is that what happens in this movie, called Cities of Refuge? If so, I apologize for the inadvertent spoiler. [Deadline]

Aw nuts. Literally! Lifetime has gone ahead and canceled Roseanne Barr's reality show Roseanne's Nuts after one measly season. The show, in case you didn't know, was about Barr living in a faraway place called Rikimiki Island and growing chewy chewy berrynuts. Or something. She lived on Parrot Island and grew something. And now it's not on anymore. Good thing she has another show in the works. Otherwise we'd be worried about her, all alone there with no TV cameras and only her magic sunshine nuts to keep her company out there on Shimmi-Timmi Island. [THR]

Speaking of Charlize Theron, bee-tee-dubs, her Monster director Patty Jenkins is, rather surprisingly, in talks to direct Thor 2, replacing Kenneth Branagh. Whaa?? That's crazytown! Well, maybe not so much crazytown. Jenkins also directed the first episode of The Killing, so she knows atmospheric stuff. And she's done Arrested Development, so she knows comedy. Plus she's directed episodes of Entourage, meaning she knows her way around things that are completely ridiculous and make no sense! So really she's an ideal choice to direct Thor 2. In slightly related news, I've just directed Chris Hemsworth to go wait for me in the boudoir, so I gotta go. Byeeee! [EW]